Christian refugees face threats, hide religion in Turkey

PanARMENIAN.Net - New York City-based think tank Gatestone Institute presents an article on the plight of 45,000 Armenian and Assyrian Christians, who fled Syria and Iraq and have settled in small cities in Turkey, forced to hide their religious identity.

Since the Islamic State (ISIS) invaded Iraqi and Syrian cities, Christians and Yazidis have become the group's main target, facing another possible genocide at the hands of Muslims, the feature suggests.

Anonis Alis Salciyan, an Armenian who fled Iraq for Turkey, told Turkish newspaper Hurriyet that in public, they pretend to be Muslim. "My husband and I fled [Iraq] with our two children one year ago with around 20 other families. There was pressure on us in Iraq," Salciyan said, recalling that her husband, who ran a jewelry shop in Iraq, is now unemployed.

What makes the plight of Christian refugees in Turkey even more tragic is that the ancestors of some of those refugees were driven out of Turkey by the Ottoman authorities and local Muslims a century ago, during the Armenian Genocide and Assyrian Genocide of 1915, the article reminds.

Now, in the 21st century, Christians in Turkey say they still live in fear.

On December 28, 2012, for instance, 85-year-old Maritsa Kucuk, an Armenian woman, was beaten and stabbed to death in her home in the neighborhood of Samatya (one of the largest Armenian communities in Istanbul), where she lived alone. Her son, Zadig Kucuk, who found her dead body at home, said that a cross had been carved on her chest.

Recalling other atrocities perpetrated against Armenian Christians in recent years, the feature goes on to suggest that in the eyes of many devout Muslims, tolerance seems to be a one-way street.

In Western countries, Muslims are equal citizens with equal rights. But some of them often demand more "rights" - privileges from their governments - such as Islamic sharia courts with a parallel legal system. If their demands are not met, they accuse people of "Islamophobia" or "racism."

In majority-Muslim countries, including Turkey, non-Muslims are continually insulted, threatened or even murdered - and most Muslims, including state authorities, do not seem to care.

“Unfortunately, hatred of Christians has become a norm in Muslim countries, and this norm will not soon go away. This means that Christians in the Middle East will continue suffering or even being murdered, and will eventually become extinct in the Middle East if the civilized world does not help them,” the article says.